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Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 18:20:41 -0500
From: "Charles D. Russell" <worwor AT bellsouth DOT net>
Reply-To: worwor AT bellsouth DOT net
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To: cygwin cygwin <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject: Re: slow windows foreground operation after installing cygwin-1.5.17-1
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    *   /From/: Mark Hadfield <m dot hadfield at niwa dot co dot nz>
    * /To/: cygwin at cygwin dot com
    * /Date/: Mon, 30 May 2005 12:07:28 +1200
    * /Subject/: Re: slow windows foreground operation after installing
      cygwin-1.5.17-1
    * /References/: <42989AFB DOT 8030107 AT bellsouth DOT net
      <http://sources.redhat.com/ml/cygwin/2005-05/msg01325.html>>

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Hadfield wrote:

Charles D. Russell wrote:

    The new cygwin1.dll (1.5.17-1) now lets me run fortran programs with
    large
    static arrays that occupy most of the available memory, but it is no
    longer
    possible to run Windows programs (MSWord or even Windows Explorer)
    in the foreground while a big math problem is chugging along in the
    background. The foreground Windows process appears not to get enough
    priority in the
    time sharing allocation to function at a usable speed.

    _____________________
    The problem disappeared after a clean reinstallation using setup to
    re-download everything. (My actual intent was to have a smaller set
    of download files in order to back up the current cygwin
    installation to CD, but it happened to fix the problem.) 


This may be flogging a dead horse (since you say the problem has gone 
away) but you didn't say what priority were you running the background 
program at. Since you didn't say--and it's obviously relevant--I wonder 
if you know about the facilities for setting program priorities. These 
include the Cygwin "nice" command and the "Set Priority" item in Task 
Manager (switch to process list and right-click on the process in question).

I do a lot of CPU-intensive, RAM-hungry numerical work in Windows 2000, 
with a variety of applications, some Cygwin and some not, and I have 
found that they *normally* interfere with foreground operation unless I 
reduce the priority of the background task. Part of the problem is that 
Windows GUI operations may to spin off low-priority tasks which then 
take *forever* to execute. The DDE system seems to be particularly prone 
to this. So I find myself adjusting priorities regularly.
___________________________

Thanks for the advice.  I didn't know how to set priorities in Windows.  
I have used "nice" with unix but had not looked for it in Cygwin.  
(IIRC, there is also a more precise way to set priorities in unix.) What 
struck me was the change in behavior on updating cygwin1.dll with no 
change in the Windows configuration.  Some slowdown was expected when 
running a big background problem, but not enough to prohibit examining 
directories with Windows Explorer, or doing simple text editing with MS 
Word.  Evidently I just had a corrupt installation.

I have been very happy with a four-year-old cygwin installation on a 64 
Mb Windows 98 laptop running fortran programs that use nearly four times 
the physical memory. (Having no problems, I never upgraded.)  I am glad 
to be able now, with the new cygwin1.dll, to make better use of the 512 
Mb in my desktop.


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